THE IRON OF THE GODS AGAINST ANXIETY AND FEAR

As we have discussed, every year the cosmic iron enters Earth’s atmosphere, following the rhythms of the cosmos. With them they bring the metal sacred to Mars, & the forces harnessed in it. But why is that? What’s the reason behind this charming show that urges us to make wishes? And what does all this have to do with iron?

According to Roman Catholic lore, the August meteor showers are the “lacrime di San Lorenzo”—St. Lawrence’s tears- the last of the seven deacons of Rome to die, martyred on 16 August 258, during the persecution of the emperor Valerian.

When he was summoned before the executioners, Lawrence was ordered to bring all the wealth of the Church with him. He showed up with a handful of crippled, poor, & sick people, & when questioned, replied that “These are the true wealth of the Church.” He was immediately sent to his death, being cooked alive on a gridiron.

Legend has it that one of his last words was a joke – he quipped to his killers: “Turn me over, I’m done on this side!”

After that, Catholics began calling the August meteors the “tears of St. Lawrence,” even though the celestial phenomenon pre-dates the saint, being associated with Perseus.

Some Italian lore also holds that the fiery bits of debris seen during a meteor shower are representative of the coals that killed St. Lawrence. This correspondence with the myth is very interesting, it finds a valid explanation in the results of a spiritual-scientific investigation.

According to Anthroposophy in Summer a specific process takes place in the human organism, as light & heat grow stronger & more potent. This is a sulphurising process. From a spiritual perspective human beings start shining ‘like glow-worms’ surrounded by a yellow-bluish “sulphur” flame. This flame is associated with the spiritual beings of ‘fallen light’ which want to take advantage of human freedom for their purposes.

“From the standpoint of the cosmos this is actually a majestically beautiful sight, for it is in this glorious astral light that human beings shine out into the cosmos during the ‘Dog Days of Summer’, but at the same time it gives occasion for the Ahrimanic power to draw near to humanity. For this adversarial power is very closely related to the sulphurising process in the human organism.

We can see how, on the one hand, the human being shines out into the cosmos in the St. John’s light, & on the other, how the dragon-like serpent-form of Ahriman winds its way among the human beings shining in the astral light & tries to ensnare & curtail us, to draw us down into the realm of half-conscious sleep & illusion”. ~Rudolf Steiner, The Four Seasons & the Archangels

This process of subtle combustion in the human organism causes what comes so natural in summer – a dream-like state where human instincts arise, gaining power over the forces of consciousness & awareness. Who hasn’t experienced this during summer? And it’s not for nothing, it is important to have that outbreath to come in contact with the cosmic reaches.

But we need to understand that from this perspective the ahrimanic forces are not interested in awakening clairvoyance in humanity. That would be an old form of clairvoyance, anyway. All they want, is to control human beings – fooling us thru our own lower instincts.

When this process of expansion comes to its peak at the Summer Solstice—we must start to come back down to earth or there is a danger we fall victim to the Luciferic influences that would draw us away from life. But the wisdom of the cosmos gives human beings the antidote. The balancing impulse to counter the forces of sulphur rising from the ground, is the cosmic iron.

“And when in high summer, from a particular constellation, meteors fall in great showers of cosmic iron, then this cosmic iron, which carries an enormously powerful healing force, is the weapon which the gods bring to bear against Ahriman, as dragon-like he tries to coil round the shining forms of men.

The force which falls on the earth in the meteoric iron is indeed a cosmic force whereby the higher gods endeavour to gain a victory over the Ahrimanic powers, when autumn comes on. And this majestic display in cosmic space, when the August meteor showers stream down into the human shining in the astral light, has its counterpart — so gentle and apparently so small — in a change that occurs in the human blood.

This human blood, which is in truth not such a material thing as present-day science imagines, but is permeated throughout by impulses from soul and spirit, is rayed through by the force which is carried as iron into the blood and wages war there on anxiety, fear and hate.

The processes which are set going in every blood-corpuscle when the force of iron shoots into it are the same, on a minute human scale, as those which take place when meteors fall in a shining stream through the air. This permeation of human blood by the anxiety-dispelling force of iron is a meteoric activity. The effect of the raying in of the iron is to drive fear and anxiety out of the blood”. ~Rudolf Steiner, The Four Seasons & the Archangels

From this perspective we can contemplate the amazing show of the meteor showers which go on into September as we make our way toward Michaelmas. We can look at them knowing that the forces of the cosmos are at work to help us.

Fear & anxiety are two adversarial forces, that especially this year, have been ensnaring us all. So this makes having an awareness of the meteor showers even more important – worthy of contemplation & active participation.

May the cosmic iron of the gods be with you, to defeat all the inner & outer obstacles that stand in your way.

~hag

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Dear friends – Not being able to travel to present my Spiritual Research, I made a little page to share some recorded offerings. Please tune in & freely pass them on…Thanks…xox

As of November 2020 I am ready to bring my Festivals, Lectures & Programs to your community once again! 

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Calendar of the Soul by Rudolf Steiner, Translation by Roy Sadler

v19
Mysteriously, to sheath
the newly conceived with memory
be now my striving’s further aim
that strengthening it shall awake
the ego forces in me
and in becoming show me who I am.

and it’s mirror for the 1st week of Advent,
v34
Mysteriously, to feel
with newly risen sense of who I am
old treasure re-enlivening within me
shall rouse a tide of cosmic force
that pouring into work I bring the world
will print me into life’s reality.

It may be a surprise that today is the last day of summer in the soul calendar year,
but it’s 8 weeks from the solstice & just 5 till the equinox.
The Soul Calendar verses form a lemniscate, whose crossing point is Easter & Michaelmas:
its height is the summer, its depths the winter. Just 1 verse quartet – 7, 20, 33, 46 –
forms a perfect square, now reached.

The Transition Verse from Summer to Autumn,
v20
And so I come to feel my being, I,
who severed from the world
would perish… I, who self-confined,
developing just from and for myself,
must die.

The Transition Verse from Autumn to Winter,
v33
And so I come to feel the world,
the life that severed from my soul
would fall to frosty emptiness… the life
that recreates itself in souls
but in itself alone finds only death.

16 August 2020 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Whenever bright Vega crosses nearest your zenith, as it does soon after dark now, you know that the Sagittarius Teapot is at its highest due south. Two hours later when Deneb crosses closest to the zenith, it’s the turn of little Delphinus & boat-shaped Capricornus down below to stand at their highest due south.

In early dawn Monday morning the 17th, you’ll find the thin crescent Moon way down under Pollux & Castor..

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

“He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.” ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Abraham receives Isaac back from Yahweh, according to the spiritual research of Rudolf Steiner, GA 117

1705 – Deathday of Jacob Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician & theorist, founder of the calculus of variations. His most important contribution was in the field of probability

1744 – Birthday of Pierre Méchain, French astronomer who studied of deep sky objects & comets

1841 – U.S. President John Tyler vetoes a bill which called for the re-establishment of the Second Bank of the United States. Enraged Whig Party members riot outside the White House in the most violent demonstration on White House grounds in U.S. history

1842 – In New York City, the U.S. government took over operations of the City Despatch Post. This was the first congressionally authorized local postage delivery

1888 – Birthday of T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia) British colonel & archaeologist

1899 – Deathday of Robert Bunsen, a German chemist, discovered caesium & rubidium, pioneer in photochemistry, & did early work in the field of organoarsenic chemistry. He developed the Bunsen burner, an improvement on the laboratory burners then in use

1948 – Deathday of Babe Ruth

1906 – An estimated 8.2 MW earthquake hits Valparaíso, Chile, killing 3,886 people

1923 – Carnegie Steel Corporation put into place the eight-hour workday for its employees

1960 – Cyprus gains independence from Britain

1977 – Deathday of Elvis Presley

1989 – A solar flare from the Sun creates a geomagnetic storm that affects micro chips, leading to a halt of all trading on Toronto’s stock market

1999 – In Russia, Vladimir V. Putin was confirmed as prime minister by the lower house of parliament

2005 – Deathday (murder) of Brother Roger Schütz, founded the Taizé Community, an ecumenical monastic community in Burgundy, France

2012 – South African police fatally shoot 34 miners & wound 78 more during an industrial dispute near Rustenburg

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POD (Poem Of the Day)

~i will the god within
to show Herself…
my soul walks out,
my mind burns…
are my eyes shining?

~hag

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Join us for the HOMECOMING of the Classroom Alive Crew-

Bring a dish to share to welcome the travelers back to Chicago

Details of when & what time TBA

ANY FINANCIAL SUPPORT IS ALSO APPRECIATED FOR FOOD & SUPPLIES https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/UrbanFirstAid?locale.x=en_US

With love and light,
Ultra, Stefan, Robbie, Frank, Dottie, and the rest of the Classroom Alive sole-power team

August 20-23, 2020 Questions of Courage Youth Conference at Elderberries

Questions of Courage 2020 in Chicago – August 20-23 Elderberries Biodynamic Outpost and 3Fold Cultural Hub 4251 N. Lincolon Ave. Chicago, IL. 60618

August 20: COMMUNITY POTLUCK GATHERING to Welcome the Youth. Please bring a dish & beverages to share – Time TBA

Check-in, share conversation, build the ground for the journey together.

August 21-22: Travel to Wisconsin Move together towards the land, link up with Farmer John and Haidy Angelic Organics Biodynamic Farm, and also with Dana and Phil Burns at Healing Traditions and Alizur farm. Connect with the land, plants, animals, and one another, through creative explorations and “roughin’ it” type amendments. Sleep under the stars or indoors.

August 23: Return to Chicago WELCOME HOME POTLUCK COMMUNITY GATHERING – Please support the youth with dinner, beverages & desert!

Enter back into the metropolitan context, into the social questions of urban life, and close the gathering together at Elderberries, setting the ground for future work out of questions of courage that are present.

Other locations and collaborators are currently in dialogue, and will be updated here.

The gathering is essentially about stepping into the living natural element, step by step, making an integral connection, with one another, ourselves, and the elements that support us here on the Earth…”

registration: https://docs.google.com/…/1FAIpQLSdY7KXHkjUPV2h9UD…/viewform

Thank you Elderberries for giving us an anchor to build our heartland gathering around!

Elderberries Biodynamic Outpost + Threefold Cultural Hub, 4251 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618

Co-sponsored in part by The Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago, Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Festival & Program Coordinator

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August 27-30 How We Will 2020: 3-Folding our Cultural Revolution is continuing its journey of transforming our ideals into action. The theme this year is Forming Curative Communities: actively uniting with one another in the emerging economic, political/rights and social/cultural/spiritual forms seeking to reshape the ills plaguing humanity into a healthy social organism for our time. Please join us if you’d like to hear from, and collaborate with those on the front lines inspired out of the fruits of Rudolf Steiner’s work: can your own hopes for the world find a way to connect with others striving to do the good as our friend Bernard Lievegoed was wont to say? Our own hero Ella Baker shares: ‘we must not stop until we can get people to recognize that they themselves have to make the struggle for freedom and human dignity everyday, in the year, every year, until they win it.’

Invitation and Registration are now open:How We Will 2020

Michaela Gloeckler of the Medical Section in Dornach and cofounder of Allianz ELIANT brings the Archetypal Picture of Ita Wegman and the Young Doctors and their courageous movement for a Michaelic renewal of civilization as a World War II raged all around them. 



Bart Eddy of Brightmoor Makers and Sunbridge will speak to what it takes to initiate our ideals into action that are inspired by the our higher natures and our wish to serve others in our time. His ‘brought down to earth visioning’, is serving the youth in one of the poorest parts in Detroit where entrepreneurs for the good are in training, not only learning to support their own livelihoods but also empowering change in their communities where devastating health and environmental issues abound: his inspired ideas for our time keep unfolding new forms for these youth! 



Kait Ziegler of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, and Repairers of the Breach, working with Reverends William Barber and Liz Theoharis, and a small beyond dedicated team, will share on this ‘turning inside out’ and what it takes to organize for social change along side of four pillars: Racism, Poverty, Ecological Devastation and the War/Prison Economy which requires a new narrative above all and a capacity to work with those who have very divergent views in the activist community. John Bloom of Rudolf Steiner Finance and General Secretary of the Anthropsophical Society will offer a conversation Toward Justice and Freedom and Capital, Money, Spirit and Matter.



Nicanor Perlas, a long time advocate for social change in the Philippines and youth mentor, will shape a conversation around ‘The Future will be what we Fight For’. His country continues to be on lockdown where they are not allowed to go outside their houses even for food and whose president recently said that he ‘would work with the military to distribute the vaccine’.



Laura Summer of Free Columbia, an art and education initiative in Philmont New York, will present on New Forms Around Art – Art Dispersal and Local Grants to increase diversity in diverse communities. Art Accessible to 100% of the People! 

Naim Edwards, Seneca Gonzalez, Melody Brink, Kristin Buckbee, Akil Bell, Monika Pudelko, Joan Jaeckel, Patrice Maynard, Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, 

Dottie Zold and Frank Agrama of the Elderberries community and newly formed Circles for a Renewal of Culture non profit, will invite an open conversation as to how it is that the Steiner students here in our country and around the world can be good advocates for emergent healing forms, where the essence of what is human is at the center of our concerns. This threefold social form has yet to be realized and yet we see all around us new forms coming into being. What do the Steiner students have to contribute to the conversation of human rights in these three realms and do we have the will to unite together for the common good of humanity? Can we organize for the future needs out of the fruits of Rudolf Steiner’s work in the world? Do we have the will for this? If so can we make a beginning at organizing and shaping our actions now?


 

Invitation and Registration are now open:How We Will 2020